Millionaire Ron Bergeron’s Newest Fight Begins
BY BUDDY NEVINS
The battle for Broward’s $1 billion garbage stream has moved into a new phase – with a newly-combative upstart competitor who has plans to hire more lobbyists to work every local city hall.
Sun/Bergeron has a signed contract to handle the garbage disposal in Miramar.
The contract was voted on, signed and handed to the Sun/Bergeron team of lobbyists and lawyers on Tuesday night at the Miramar City Commission meeting.
It’s the backstory I obtained from exclusive interviews that is interesting, especially if you don’t live in Miramar.
Sun/Bergeron fight now will spread to every city in Broward.
The firm will use individual lobbyists who have contacts in various city halls. It will be a massive, expensive attempt to steal even more business from Wheelabrator Technologies.
The huge Sun/Bergeron lobbying effort will be matched by Wheelabrator’s bevy of lobbyists guarding that company’s turf.
The lobbying fees alone — tens of thousand per city — could be counted as economic stimulus.
Wheelabrator has held a near monopoly on waste disposal in Broward since the 1980s, having contracts with 26 of Broward’s 31 cities. Since those contracts expires next year, multi-millionaire entrepreneur Ron Bergeron and his partner Southern Waste Systems of Palm Beach County saw a chance to grab some of the business.
We’re talking up to a billion dollars in moldy orange rinds, wet diapers, dirty rags and everything else that goes in your garbage.
While Bergeron and his partner plot their lobbying effort, they decided to take care of some old business.
Ever since beginning his campaign against Wheelabrator, Bergeron has been plagued by relentless, one-sided attacks by one media reporter who also writes a blog. Almost every time the issue came up for a vote in a city or at the county commission, this reporter would allege some wrongdoing on the part of Southern Waste.
Strangely, this reporter largely ignored the slew of allegations and fines paid by Wheelabrator and its parent Waste Management.
Bergeron decided he needed some added muscle in the media world.
He shoved Sun/Bergeron’s previous local PR firm Boardroom Communications into the background. The firm,which will still do work for Sun/Bergeron in some capacity, seemed unable to counter the barrage of negative publicity from this one reporter. Or get enough positive media attention for Sun/Bergeron’s effort.
So Sun/Bergeron hired the big guns at the nationwide Hill Knowlton PR firm. The firm already hit pay dirt — the first news release, a positive one on the Miramar contact being awarded was used in dozens of outlets.
Bergeron didn’t stop with just good news releases. He had a big name law firm threaten the reporter with a lawsuit.
Believe me, Bergeron has the money to hire the best attorneys and make this reporter end what Sun/Beregeon believe is one-sided reporting. Or at least cost his employers thousands upon thousands of dollars.
( The reporter goes nameless here, because I’m not trying to embarrass him.)
The good news is that finally we have competition in a field that one company controlled for too long. The competition will bring cheaper garbage disposal costs.
That’s a good thing.
Another good thing is that Bergeron has the cash and clout to push thie competition across Broward…and give a better deal for all taxpayers.
July 6th, 2012 at 11:25 am
Buddy, while your personal issues with “the media reporter that also writes a blog” are well known, I find it interesting that you can read the mind, plan of action and fiscal value amount that Bergeron may want to invest in contesting his bad publicity.
FROM BUDDY:
I can do a lot of things, Christine, but reading minds is not one of them. The post above is based on extensive interviews with those mentioned…except for the reporter in question.
July 6th, 2012 at 11:51 am
Well in that case Buddy, perhaps you should consider re-crafting this piece…cuz that isn’t how it reads….
July 6th, 2012 at 12:10 pm
This is all very easy to understand. Ron Bergeron saw an opportunity to compete in a field ripe for someone to step forward and provide some competition. He picked his moment to jump in very carefully. When Waste tried to screw cities into accepting their bloated incinerator contract renewal, Bergeron saw his opportunity and pounced on it. Millions in Waste Management profits are now at stake and Ron Bergeron has their Broward business plan in his cross hairs. Waste Management must now scramble to recover from their blunder. They will probably stop at nothing. Bergeron has nothing to lose and everything to gain and that’s why int he end he will win. We should root for him to win because competition will improve service and reduce cost. The waste business has always been suspect but competition helps to keep it cleaner. Competition is a good thing. Waste would be smart to sharpen a pencil and lower their costs rather than try to salvage an already lost business past.
July 6th, 2012 at 12:27 pm
I wonder how much money Waste management paid Bob Norman for all that favorable one sided coverage.
July 6th, 2012 at 1:02 pm
Buddy;
No need to embarrass Bob Norman. Just turn on WPLG, that’s embarrassment enough.
Like Pink Floyd and The Wall, Bob hit his high water mark with Scott Rothstein and he’s been trying (and utterly failing) to recapture that high ever since.
—
Side note: I’ve been torching Bob over on MAOS… And Bob, in response, decided to call up some “old flames” of mine. See what dirt he could dig up on me.
As if anyone in the audience hasn’t already realized I’m an asshole. Duh and/or hello?
As if I was the first person in history to have a crazy relationship.
Heard that Mayor Peggy Noland shot him down. Said I was good for the town.
And my old GF? Well Bob, that dog won’t hunt either, being that private issue was amicably resolved between us in 2005.
Bet you didn’t know thst when you called last weekend, I was sitting right next to her… When she looked at callerID and said “who’s Robert C. Norman”, I replied “he’s irrelevant.”
In the end, I wonder… Will Bob’s TV career be as illustrative as Rich Sanchez?
July 7th, 2012 at 12:03 am
This Scott Israel is such a compulsive liar about everything. He was caught shoplifting cologne in police uniform at the Galleria Mall and threatened the witness to have amnesia, but HE”S BACK NOW!!!
O yea!!! News flash about Scott Israel’s ARREST in Key West for Trespassing…. Do we really need another arrested Sheriff, not in my life time… Okay okay you want proof, no problem. Key West and North Bay Village COPs who can’t stand dirty and sneaky Israel are happy to help. Plus, the COPS said he was a total ass, what a surprise. No different then when him and his brother were ARRESTED at Shooters, then LET GO!!!
FDLE File #MI-73-1114
FBI#10276987
The three civil suits!!
CACE 84-013758
CACE 90-02811
CACE 93-02811
Yes he is listed as the DEFENDANT!!!!
Tip of the iceberg!!!
July 7th, 2012 at 6:13 pm
Two huge companies make millions from picking up garbage, while the workers on the trucks get low wages and few if any benefits. It is no wonder that so many vote Democratic.
July 7th, 2012 at 9:46 pm
the biggest joke in all of this is that the taxpayers of Broward over the last 20 years PAID for the Wheelabrator facility on 441 at 595 that they use to process our trash for their profit. no taxpayer will get a break regardless of who the deal is made with. the cities will see to that as they line their coffers
July 7th, 2012 at 10:25 pm
@DeeDee
Actually, garbage truck drivers won a $7M lawsuit against WM.
http://www.myactsofsedition.com/2012/06/26/garbage-truck-drivers-win-7m-settlement/
July 8th, 2012 at 12:06 pm
Readers are wise to suspect news story that contain editorial material. The opinion of the reporter should never outshine the factual content of the story. When reporter bias toward a particular conclusion is clearly perceived you are on the edge of reading propaganda.
The demise of modern journalism involves erasure of traditional lines between news reporting and editorial. These are best done separately journalists are taught. Newspaper editors cheat journalism in order to sell more newspapers, or more ad time on TV. But it spoils the product for the consumer.
Journalistic ethics frowns on any editorial without disclosure to alert the reader that it is not straight news. Yet this rule is not followed.
A true news story captures only the opinions of sources. It informs fully about all sides of an issue. It doesn’t attempt to persuade instead preferring to explore and inform. It challenges the reader to reach their own conclusions based on objective presentations of the news as it exists.
Reporters like Bob Norman insert their own point of view into every news story they write. For them, the facts are simply stepping stones on the way to promoting their own opinion. Informing the public is secondary to using the news to promote his own opinion.
That approach is inherently suspect. It blazes red hot like a rocket and inevitably runs out of fuel. It is always self-destructive and is always short lived. The decline of Norman’s rocket is in plain view. He’s run out of fuel and will soon thump to a halt when he hits bottom.
It is inevitably so of all hack reporters.
July 8th, 2012 at 2:24 pm
@Plain Language
If you go back to like 2009 and read some of Norman’s old stuff, his writing was amazing.
Excellent craftsmanship. Insightful. Poignant. Really good shit. Top of the local game.
And then along came Scott Rothstein.
Rothstein ended up in jail, Norman ended up in the shitter.
Sure Bob’s on TV, but so what? Glenn Beck had a ton of followers, so viewership doesn’t equate to a decent product.
—
But that’s not to say Norman’s not without his devout groupies. In his case, that includes a woman who pretends to be a doctor, but actually works as a secretary in a church and a fellow who is supposedly so rich, yet his Hollywood condo was seized in foreclosure and he’s behind several years in property taxes.
—
And when an activist such as myself pushes back, Norman reacts (as a rookie would) by attempting to dig up dirt.
Why Bob?
I’m merely trying to do the other side of your job. Trying to present the other side of the argument.
Bob says he can’t find anything on WM. Two words — “google.”
Seconds on the InterWebs reveals multi-million dollar fines, environmental disasters, criminal charges, funny business with WM’s stock value, and so on.
Hell, what about the 2006 fines levied against WM by the City of Delray. Or the $700K worth of fines from PB County. Or the $7.5M fines for destroying some MA wetlands.
Why hasn’t any of that made Bob’s reporting? Why has WPLG gone out of its way to be unbalanced and unfair?
I believe that answer will make it on the radar someday.
Until then, it will be up to a select few to push back against Norman and his nonsense.
July 8th, 2012 at 6:35 pm
FLORIDA U KNOW THIS COURT – IS INCOMPETENT INEPT & CORRUPT! – FUKTHISCOURT.COM
Bergeron decided he needed some added muscle in the media world.
He shoved Sun/Bergeron’s previous local PR firm Boardroom Communications into the background. The firm,which will still do work for Sun/Bergeron in some capacity, seemed unable to counter the barrage of negative publicity from this one reporter. Or get enough positive media attention for Sun/Bergeron’s effort.
KRISTI KRUEGER WPLG CHANNEL 10 NEWS ANCHORWOMAN IS MARRIED TO EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT TODD TEMPLIN OF BOARDROOM COMMUNICATIONS, INC. AND A FORMER EXECUTIVE PRODUCER FOR WPLG-TV
CONFLICT OF INTEREST?
FUKTHISCOURT.COM
July 8th, 2012 at 8:07 pm
@Fuk
Dude.
Two words.
Shift key… Give the little bastard a try…
July 9th, 2012 at 1:52 am
Competition is great but isn’t there an exclusive hurricane / disaster cleanup contract with this new group ? Think about it…are we going to be closely watching County finances when your roof is ripped off or their is a tree in front of your driveway ?
FROM BUDDY:
Bergeron has had a separate disaster response company for years. It is not part of this joint venture.
July 9th, 2012 at 5:41 am
BIG DADDY BERGERON PLANS TO BUILD HIS WASTE PLANT NEXT TO THE SAME AREA THE CANCELLED ICE PRISON WAS To BE BUILT-SO THEIR WILL BE ABOTHER HUGE FIGHT BY THE LOCAL COMMUNITIES TO KILL THIS PROJECT. BROWARD HAS CLOSED THE LANDFILL, AND THE WOMENS PRISON AND SO THERE CAN BE NO EXCUSE THAT A NEW WASTE PLANT FITS THE INDUSTRIAL FLAVOR OF THE AREA. BERGERON HAS BOUGHT OFF MORE POLITICIANS THAN THERE ARE KERNELS ON A CORN COB. KEEP MIRAMARS GARBAGE IN MIRAMAR-NOT IN THE FRONT YARDS OF OUR HOMES AND SCHOOLS.
July 9th, 2012 at 8:59 am
Chaz is right on target. Norman was an interesting read in 2009 but the reason was not Bob Norman. The reason was Bob Norman’s sources. Anybody could have written stuff like that with the information flow he was getting. Power and position was at stake.
The Sun Sentinel and Herald would not write what some needed to be said. Norman was given the dirt they would not print. He had a good run with it and the power structure in Broward shifted just enough to benefit those that wanted to replace it. Norman was their tool and probably didn’t even realize it.
The new players have no need for Norman now. He can only threaten their turn in charge. That’s why Norman’s well has run dry.
No reporter remains hot without sources. Norman’s phone doesn’t ring because people avoid him. He’s not trusted.
Nevins had it going strong at the Sentinel for a long time. He knew how to milk the job without it turning on him. He didn’t write everything he was given. He knew how to be selective. He had restraint. Norman has none of those things. He gets drunk with it all. He is a power hungry guy with a very needy ego. That’s a terrible combination for any reporter.
Doesn’t it occur to you why he is so in love with the Rothstein story? He and Rothstein are the same guy.
Some cops become cops to keep from becoming criminals. Others become reporters for the same reason.
How’s that for insight?
July 9th, 2012 at 9:48 am
JAQUEBAUER is full of shit.
Some WM lackey no doubt.
July 10th, 2012 at 12:51 pm
Hey Buddy how about the three Pines officials that voted against the Ice prison. A bunch of negitive comments where made on this site. It shows a few people can make difference. Next up will be the garbage deal.